Chapters (31)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Room in the Dark I
- Fawns of the Diaspora Court Liliane in Paris, While Tabou Combo Whispers “Coq Qualité” in Her Ears
- Room in the Dark II
- “I Usedta Drink, Smoke and Do the Hoochie-Koo,” or What’s a Girl to Do When Her Mother Looks Like Ruth Brown
- Room in the Dark III
- “El Bochinche” es que only Fe Cortijo Knows or All the LeBron Brothers Know If Victor-Jésus María Sang Lili to Her Freedom
- Room in the Dark IV
- And Where Is Garnett Mimms?
- Room in the Dark V
- I Know Where Kansas City Is, But Did Wilbert Harrison Ever Get There?
- Room in the Dark VI
- Zoom Went the Strings of Liliane’s Heart, But Arsenio Rodriguez Could Have Told Her the Music Sounds Just as Sweet When We’re Blind and Still We See
- Room in the Dark VII
- I Know Where the E Train Stops But I’m “Sendin’ Out an S.O.S.” and I’m Not Edwin Starr Either
- Room in the Dark VIII
- “Happy, Happy Birthday, Baby” or Wouldn’t It Be Great If the Lead Singer of The Crests Wasn’t a White Boy and I Could Be My Mother?
- Room in the Dark IX
- Every Time My Lil World Seems Blue, I Just Haveta Look at You and Learn Eye-Hand Coordination
- Room in the Dark X
- “That’s Why I Love Her So and Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, I Want to Know” or Why Jackie Wilson Died in Silence
- Room in the Dark XI
- There’s No Use Cryin’ “Forever” or Hyacinthe Returns from a Very Blue Holiday for Real B(l)ack at Ya
- Room in the Dark XII
- Lollie Struts Her Stuff Thru “The Sea of Love” or the Brides of Frankenstein Catch the Bouquet
- By Ntozake Shange
- Acknowledgments
- Copyright
By the time our truck was coming up the road from Guerneville with crackers reluctantly filling the tank of painted colored folks, Lili was nestled on the sands of Bolinas, a town without a sign so undesirables like us can’t find it less we know somebody. Now, Lili knew somebody whose name was “Zoom.” I kid you not. This was a white boy challenging the speed of light and sound, outdistancing those of us mired in primitive relics or nostalgia. Zoom went straight to Lili’s heart. Who could resist a devotee to a process one is just inventing. El proceso es la revolutión. El proceso es todo.
Lili likes to gloss over this part: the seduction by a white boy of una negra no white boy had touched, but how can we do that? This is of paramount significance, a departure from our realities that must be examined in detail, if we are to prevent its reoccurrence. Entonces we begin with this town that white people don’t want us to know where it is: Bolinas. Clear uninterrupted waters, trees bosom branches sucking skies, Lili’s ass caressing the surf with Zoom tween her legs. Oh, dios mio, I can hardly stand this, but I promised I’d tell the truth. She thought since she had never been with a white boy that it should accomplish some task, like she was in a fairy tale or something.
This is not my doing, I swear. Lili had this Zoom guy swimming tween her legs tryin’ to kiss her clit in the water in the dark. Of course they both almost drowned. “But Victor, he tried,” she squealed. Far as I’m concerned he lacks goddamned common sense or he would have told Lili that he could not and would not kiss her pussy floating in the water cause that seriously imperiled his life, but being the reformed and eager-to-please white boy that he is, he complied. Now, you see, the integrity of the fairy tale with Lili and Zoom defying the laws of physics allows them to skirt our cultural mores.
Yes, I realize I was not there with them at the time, in the moment to document their distortion of my sense of reality. Pero, I have photographed the location, the earthbound interstices of every single episode in Lili’s chiaroscuro adventure; Zoom don’t know what zoom is. I’m the reality test here. I take pictures in black and white that don’t lie. Besides it’s Lili who leaves traces of light wherever she’s stepped or lain. She manifests as silver flashes on a two-dimensional plane. Still she talks to me: